Democarcy- Democrat to someone new in this country it looks like they are supporting the "Ruling Party" by voting democrat. What is actually happening is that the democrats are eager to allow illegal aliens in, interefer with efforts to verify voter ID's and other shenanigans simply because it gives them an influx of voters that can outvote the real citizens. It is a corruption of the law of the land. I would not be surprised if some citizens start doing things on there own initiative shortly. I know some folks who live close to the border, and they are very unhappy. They get their fences cut and livestock get out, Border Patrol is not very effective due to their funding and step child status, it may come down to the old style method of dealing with fence cutters and rustlers..........

I have no problem with someone who comes to the country to get ahead in life and joining the community. I do have a problem with someone coming into the country and demanding the community to fit them. If they are comming here to have a token citizen, expecting to not learn the language, and not become "hyphenated" then I think they should not be getting across the border. That is one function that IS a function of the federal govt. they are scoring a big FAIL in that responsibility while trying to expand stuff that is way outside their authority.

Immigration Officials Arrest 300 in California By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLDPublished: December 11, 2009 LOS ANGELES — Nearly 300 illegal immigrants who had committed serious crimes were deported or detained this week by federal agents in a demonstration of what immigration officials pledged was a new resolve to zero in on the most egregious lawbreakers.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials called the three-day sweep in California their largest operation ever aimed at illegal immigrants with criminal records.

More than 80 percent had convictions for serious or violent crimes and at least 100 have been removed from the country, with the others awaiting deportation proceedings.

John Morton, an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security who is in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Friday that focusing on serious criminals helped improve public safety.

“These are not people who we want walking our streets,” Mr. Morton said at a news conference here, a day after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made much the same point at a Congressional hearing.

The Department of Homeland Security has been criticized by immigrant advocates and civil libertarians in recent years for rounding up hundreds of people whose only offense was being in the country without proper documents, sometimes at the cost of breaking up families.

President Obama had campaigned on a promise of a more compassionate approach to immigration enforcement that would focus on ridding the country of felons and cracking down on employers who deliberately hire illegal workers.

Mr. Morton, citing limited resources, said, “We are going to focus on those people who choose to pursue a life of crime in the United States rather than pursue the American dream of education, hard work and success.”

Last year, 136,126 illegal immigrants with criminal records were deported, a record number, officials said. While department officials trumpeted the mass arrests this week, they could not say how many serious criminal offenders who are in the country illegally remain on the streets.

The Immigrants’ Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union reacted skeptically to the announcement, noting that despite assurances that serious criminals were the target, previous sweeps have turned out to capture large numbers of people with no such records.

“We would welcome more effective targeting than in the past but it is not yet clear that is the case here,” said Caroline Cincotta, a fellow at the project, who also questioned whether the swift deportations had allowed people to have full due process.

ICE officials said just six of those arrested had no record at all, and they sought to play up the serious nature of the offenses of those who were apprehended.

Those arrested included a Guatemalan man with ties to a Los Angeles gang who had committed first-degree robbery, a Mexican man convicted of lewd acts with a child and a Mexican man with a rape conviction.

Of the 286 people arrested, 63 had previously been deported. At least 17 face prosecution for re-entering the country without proper documents.

The agents and officers tracked down most of those arrested through tips and a review of immigration files, court and public records. Many people arrested this week were never deported after serving prison time for their offenses because they fell through the cracks.

Mr. Morton said the immigration agency was improving cooperation with local and state jailers, and is rolling out a “Secure Communities” program that by 2012 is expected to permit all local jails nationwide to check the immigration status of inmates.

The deportees represented 31 countries, though the majority, 207, were from Mexico.

Its POTH, so caveat lector:--------------------------------------------------

Church Works With U.S. to Spare Detention By NINA BERNSTEINPublished: December 12, 2009 HIGHLAND PARK, N.J. — When the young pastor started his ministry here at the century-old Reformed Church in 2001, he gave little thought to the separate congregation of Indonesian Christians who shared the sanctuary. They worshiped quietly in their own language on Sunday afternoons, at the end of a hard week’s work in the factories and warehouses of central New Jersey.

But by May 2006, when they began pleading to sleep at the church, the pastor, the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, had to pay attention. At the apartment complex where many Indonesians lived, armed federal immigration agents in a single night had rounded up 35 men with expired visas and outstanding deportation orders, as their wives and children cried and other families hid. Suddenly a prosperous suburban congregation was confronted with the labyrinthine world of immigration law and detention. This year, when one of its own leaders, an Indonesian, was detained for months, only the pastor’s passionate, last-ditch efforts saved him from deportation. And the church reached a new level of activism — with extraordinary results.

Under an unusual compact between the pastor and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Newark, four Indonesians have been released from detention in recent weeks, and 41 others living as fugitives from deportation have turned themselves in under church auspices. Instead of being jailed — as hundreds of thousands of immigrants without criminal records have been in recent years — they have been released on orders of supervision, eligible for work permits while their lawyers consider how their cases might be reopened.

Though agency officials say the arrangement is simply an example of the case-by-case discretion they often use, the outcome has astonished advocates and experts in immigration enforcement, and raised hopes that it signals some broader use of humanitarian release as the Obama administration vows to overhaul the immigration system.

Still, for those who turn themselves in, the leap of faith carries big risks. For now, they can check in at a federal office every three months and, if granted a work permit, can secure a driver’s license. But they are also vulnerable to immediate deportation. Just this fall, nine Indonesian Christians in Seattle who had been on supervised release for years were abruptly detained, and some were deported.

The immigration agency issues about 10,000 orders of supervision annually, but they typically involve people who cannot be deported for practical reasons, like a homeland that will not take them back. The agency detains roughly 380,000 people a year.

“I’m totally on uncharted waters,” Mr. Kaper-Dale, 34, a Vermont native who shares the pulpit with his wife, Stephanie, said in October as he began seeking volunteers willing to place themselves in the government’s hands, from about 200 candidates not only at his church, but at several other New Jersey congregations.

The first ones to step up had to overcome fear born of experience.

“Very, very scary,” said Augus Alex Assa, 46, who fought tears as his 5-year-old daughter, Christia Celine, clung to him in the van from the church, in Middlesex County, to an immigration enforcement unit in Newark. “In my heart, I hope I will stay in the United States.”

Like most of the Indonesians, Mr. Assa and his wife, Grace, came on tourist visas that were suddenly easy for poor people to get in the 1990s, when a booming economy welcomed foreign labor with a wink and a nod. Everything changed after 9/11, when a government directive required the “special registration” of men ages 16 to 65 who had entered the country on temporary visas from a list of predominantly Muslim countries, including Indonesia. If they did not register, it was understood, they would be considered terrorist fugitives.

Most of the Indonesian Christians complied, on the advice of pastors. They hoped that honesty would open a path to legal status rather than deportation to their homeland, where many had faced discrimination and sectarian violence.

Instead, their appeals for asylum were denied in most cases, some through inattention by inept or overburdened lawyers. And those who registered became easy targets when national immigration politics demanded a crackdown.

During the 2006 raid, Mr. Assa hid in a closet when immigration agents came to the door, as his wife covered their daughter’s mouth. For two weeks afterward, they and others slept at the church.

About 50 men were eventually deported, typically after lengthy stays in immigration jails, leaving wives struggling to support American-born children. “We were shocked, but we were kind of paralyzed,” the pastor said.

On Jan. 12, the detention of one of their own spurred the congregation to action. Harry Pangemanan, a popular Bible study leader, was picked up by immigration agents as he left for work as a warehouse supervisor. He and his wife, Mariyana, parents of two American-born daughters, were the only Indonesians among the 300 people in the main congregation.

Church members organized daily visits to the detention center, a 40-minute drive away in Elizabeth, N.J., while the pastor appealed to Congressional and immigration offices. When Mr. Pangemanan reached out with his Bible to fellow detainees, the congregation visited them, too. Appalled to find asylum-seekers behind barbed wire and plexiglass, they began holding vigils outside the center, run for profit by the Corrections Corporation of America.

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Some church members resisted. “As a construction worker who is directly affected by immigration, it’s very hard,” said Rich Lord, 39. “I felt like, they’re taking my jobs away.”

But his union and his faith changed his mind, he said: “There’s pregnant women so desperate in Mexico that they’re willing to cross the desert so their child will be born in the United States. And as a Christian, I have to remember that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had to flee their homeland.” Then, at 5 a.m. on March 31, came bad news: Mr. Pangemanan was being put on a plane to Indonesia. The pastor threw on his clerical collar and ran through Newark Liberty International Airport in a frantic search for the right gate, determined to pray with his friend before he was sent away.

By the time the pastor found the flight, the passengers had already boarded. As he tells the story, he prayed at the gate, so visibly upset that an airline worker let him on the plane.

Mr. Pangemanan was in the last row between two immigration agents — bound not for Jakarta but for a detention center in Tacoma, Wash. — when he saw his pastor coming down the aisle. An astonished agent asked, “How did this guy get in here?”

The agents let them pray briefly; the pastor said goodbye but vowed to keep trying. Back at the church, he phoned every number on the immigration agency’s Web site.

He still cherishes the recording of the only message that came back, from Dora B. Schriro, who has since left the agency but was then special detention adviser to Janet Napolitano, secretary of homeland security. Within a week of their conversation, Mr. Pangemanan was back in New Jersey with his family, his case under reconsideration by the Board of Immigration Appeals.

When immigration agents arrested several more Indonesian men in late September, church leaders took their effort to a new level, meeting with Scott Weber, director of the detention and removal field office in New Jersey, and agency envoys from Washington.

David J. Venturella, acting director of the agency’s national detention and removal operations, said he approved the discussions. “We encourage all of our field office directors to exercise prosecutorial discretion on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “This is a perfect example.”

Mr. Weber rejected the ministers’ proposal for a church-run alternative to detention, but offered his own: In groups of 5 or 10, twice a week, the church could bring in the Indonesians they vouched for, and lawyers committed to the lengthy process of seeking their full case files.

Unless something was amiss — a hidden criminal conviction, a false address — the former fugitives could walk out the same day. Even before the details were arranged, Mr. Weber released four recent Indonesian detainees, one a Muslim.

Amy Gottlieb, immigrant rights director for the American Friends Service Committee in New Jersey, who has been dealing with the field office since 1996, called it “an amazing moment.”

“One, you just never believe that ICE is going to work with you on anything, given the history,” she said. “And given the intensive arrest efforts for the last two or three years, it’s hard to believe that people are ready to recognize that every single case has a human angle.”

Rex Chen, the supervising lawyer at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Newark, remains more pessimistic, likening himself to a financial adviser who warns, “This mutual fund could collapse.”

While the arrangement may buy the Indonesians a year or two, he said, unless grounds are found to reopen their cases, or Congress changes immigration law, they could find “they just moved up from not known, to on the list, to you’re taking the steps up to the airplane.”

I don't know the name of the guy they have on Fox who is going around the country asking people if they are for the health care bill.Most, if not all the people it seems who are for it appear to be students (who aren't yet in the real world toiling to pay for all these entitlements) or people who seem to think it will be free for them.Yes "the govenernment" should provide health care to everyone."No one should be without this right"."Well who else is going to pay for it if not the rich".

This is the mentality of what Republicans are up against.This gigantic expectation of entitlements. This gigantic sense that someone else should pay for it and these people will sit back and reap the benefits.

I don't know if there is a good answer to this. Until there is the country will forever be divided between those who want all these things and others to pay for it, and those who do pay for it.

I couldn't believe Lou Dobbs was on OReilly saying we should grant some sort of amnesty to the illegals here since they and their children are already here. Pay a fine, learn English, get on some path to citizenship. I guess we are screwed. The thought of another 12 to 20 million mostly democrats who will continue the viscious cycle of entitlements. And they were both saying we should cap the number of first degree relatives they will bring in with them at perhaps one or two - OMG - now we are talkinga bout 24 to 60 million new people almost all crats!! And we all know the crats are for big gov, big entitlements, and socialism in general.

I don't know the name of the guy they have on Fox who is going around the country asking people if they are for the health care bill.Most, if not all the people it seems who are for it appear to be students (who aren't yet in the real world toiling to pay for all these entitlements) or people who seem to think it will be free for them.Yes "the govenernment" should provide health care to everyone."No one should be without this right"."Well who else is going to pay for it if not the rich".

This is the mentality of what Republicans are up against.This gigantic expectation of entitlements. This gigantic sense that someone else should pay for it and these people will sit back and reap the benefits.

I don't know if there is a good answer to this. Until there is the country will forever be divided between those who want all these things and others to pay for it, and those who do pay for it.

I couldn't believe Lou Dobbs was on OReilly saying we should grant some sort of amnesty to the illegals here since they and their children are already here. Pay a fine, learn English, get on some path to citizenship. I guess we are screwed. The thought of another 12 to 20 million mostly democrats who will continue the viscious cycle of entitlements. And they were both saying we should cap the number of first degree relatives they will bring in with them at perhaps one or two - OMG - now we are talkinga bout 24 to 60 million new people almost all crats!! And we all know the crats are for big gov, big entitlements, and socialism in general.

Action 1: Close the border, shoot those who are illegally crossing. We are at war with an organization that specializes in covert operations aren't we?

Action 2: Do a Clean SweepThose that are already here, Arrest, investigate to discover if they meet:

Are they already functioning as a ctizen aside from being illegal?Are they here to stay, and getting "acculturated" (are they joining the American Tribe?)?Are they Affiliated in ANY way (guilt by association applies here) with a Terrorist group, Socialism, Fascism, or any other currently armed action organization (some green groups will meet criteria)?Are they Criminals, actual harm others type criminals, in the country they came from?What is their health status?There are others I am missing, but these are a few of the top of my head.

If they meet the criteria, let them stay. Give them legitimate systemic status (ID, SS#, Tax, ETC.) and let them naturalize. If they do not meet the criteria, Handle Them Apropriately. If they are criminals with genuine harm others type of credentials, they are part of the infiltration group we are at war with. Given this status, Immediate execution under the Geneva Convention (non-uniformed spys and partisans) is allowed. If they are simply dissidents (ones who just came, not those asking asylum), or hard luck cases- send them home. They accepted a risk with choosing an illegal path, they can now pay the price- Deportation.

Recover the costs of this stuff by charging a tourist surcharge based on the costs of transportation (this will apply to the ambassadors, ministers, big companies etc.). Other cost recovery can be accounted for by simply "absorbing" the multiple payments made on various state and federal payroll deduction taxes (A fine on those who are able to stay for their violation of the law). The Border Patrol/INS can use a percentage to fund their activity. The $ aside from the INS "vig" will remain in the various funds to maintain their stability for the real Citizen/taxpayers.

Last, if I was working, living and planning on joining another Tribe/Country, I would expect to learn the language and culture enough to understand my place in it, and what was going on. Until then my input to the tribe would rightfully be marginal. All government documents should be printed in American Only. If you cannot understand them, then you probably do not understand the culture yet and would do more harm than good by attempting to vote or bring various legal action. That does not mean translators or day to day business has to be in American, it just means that regular public life will be using american. Like all choices the will be limits you will have to accept if you choose "not".

I'm not sure allowing those who meet criteria is such a good idea.Reagan gave amnesty to a few million in the early 80s.Now we have ten times the problem.We do it again and we may have another ten times the problem in 30 years.

I really don't think it is that hard to stop this.Simply we make employers have to verify citizen status before hiring.What is so hard about having some sort of data bank of citizens and asking employers to require an ID before they hire and making it a crime to knowingly hire an illegal by not having some sort of ID verification documentation?

And we need to stop the loophole that anyone born here is automatically a citizen when neither of their parents are.

What is so hard about doing these things?

You won't have to shoot anyone coming over because they won't be coming over - unless it is to bring over drugs.

I feel sorry for the Mexicans who are trying to remain honest and fight the narco terrorists.We are the assholes buying the stuff while we sit comfortably North of the border while people are dying South of the border.

But empolyers are responsible. Don't you agree most here who hire illegals know full well they are doing so?And it is not soley the Mexican/US border. I doubt Obama's mother walked across from Mexico yet she is here illegally.What about the illegal Haitains. Dominicans, other Carib islands people, Indians, Africans, Chinese, Eastern Europeans, and more who are here illegally.

I think we probably need to do more at the border as well but that is not getting at the root of the problem.

It seems more humane and politically easier to simply cut off their funding to get them to leave rather then round people up, arrest them in INS raids, shoot them at the borders, etc.

People won't be coming here by the millions if not for Americans (mostly) knowingly giving illegals jobs.

And for full time work we ask people for ID anyway to give them 1099s, W2s etc. So what's the big deal.So my gardner might have to spend a bit more to hire a legal employee. He charges me an arm and leg anyway.

Crafty, don't you think the analogy is a bit extreme?

I don't think it is Nazi Germany to verify people are here legally to give them a job.

The problem also is these people ARE draining our health system, our schools, the Medicaid for their kids, food stamps for their kids who are legal and probably, other ways of playing the system.

I would rather feel comfortable asking someone for papers than have to sit idly by like a fool and worry and wring my hands at risk of being called a bigot because it is obvious when someone in front of me is here illegally.

If we simply made it mandatory for all it would be easy to do. And we are just talking about people who are applying for jobs. Not at food stores, gas stations, being stopped for no reason on the street etc.

I am not clear what Republicans stand for with regard to illegals. Illegals seems to be equated with Latinos though it doesn't.

Obama's WH comes out with this which is reasonable to me:

"White House spokesman Adam Abrams said the president wanted to sign a bill that strengthened border enforcement and cracked down on employers "who exploit undocumented workers to undercut American workers." He also said the president wanted to resolve the status of 12 million people who were in the U.S. illegally, "that they should have to register, pay a penalty for breaking the law and meet other obligations of legal immigrants such as paying taxes, or leave the country."

So if this is NOT satisfactory to Latino groups than what is satisfactory to THEM that makes ANY Republican think THEY are going to win over their votes? Isn't it obvious that many Latinos want the most mea culpa they can get?So does this mean Rep will trip over their own feet to conceed more for votes?? I hope not.Why is it so difficult to ask why the citizens of this country have to be held hostage by illegals?

Why do we have to keep shooting ourselves in the head? Our system is so broken. If we don't get a real leader who cannot rise above this I really believe this country is sunk. Who is going to tell Americans they have to get off their damn lazy asses and work our way out of the mess we are in?

***WASHINGTON — As one of the first Latinos in the nation to endorse Barack Obama , Democratic state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo of Los Angeles campaigned hard for the president, but he's disappointed now.

The reason: Obama has yet to do anything on a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws, as he promised to do when he ran for president.

"I think he's in danger of breaking the spirit of solidarity and hope," Cedillo said. "More than a broken promise, it's the danger of breaking people's sense of hope in the Latino community."

While the president carried the Latino vote by large margins 15 months ago, many Republicans are out to capitalize on Latino dissatisfaction with Obama and Washington's Democratic leaders. They think that could help them immensely in the 2010 elections.

Republican candidates will gain ground from Latinos once Latinos realize "that what the Democrats offer is just a bunch of empty promises," said Hector Barajas , a communications consultant for the California State Senate Republican Caucus .

He noted that the president spent only about 10 seconds on immigration at the very end of his State of the Union speech last month. Barajas said the issue had been particularly hot on Spanish talk radio ever since Obama gave that speech.

"It's what didn't happen," Barajas said. "I mean, he spent more time talking about gays in the military than he did about providing some immigration reform plan."

The White House said that it remained committed to passing a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws.

White House spokesman Adam Abrams said the president wanted to sign a bill that strengthened border enforcement and cracked down on employers "who exploit undocumented workers to undercut American workers." He also said the president wanted to resolve the status of 12 million people who were in the U.S. illegally, "that they should have to register, pay a penalty for breaking the law and meet other obligations of legal immigrants such as paying taxes, or leave the country."

"The president told members of both parties that if they can fashion a plan to deal with these problems, he is eager to work with them to get it done," Abrams said.

"It's really a colossal hassle for the administration, that there is so much impatience from so many groups — including Latinos — that are hellbent on having an immigration reform package in 2010, an election year," he said. "It's difficult in any season in any year, but this is a very precarious year for Obama."

Regalado said Republicans were exploiting the issue "with good reason," because it was a no-win situation for Democrats: They lose votes from Latinos if they don't come up with a comprehensive solution to immigration, or they lose votes from more conservative members of their base if they do.

"It's fraught with political peril," he said. "There's no question about that."

Cedillo, who campaigned for Obama in California , Texas and Nevada and debated on his behalf on Spanish radio, said the president and Democratic leaders needed to show Latinos that they were committed to them "not only during the campaign, but after the election."

He predicted that Latinos will provide the determining vote in every upcoming presidential election. Obama was hugely popular among Latinos, receiving 75 percent of the more than 10 million votes they cast in the 2008 presidential election.

Latinos are gearing up to be big players this fall. Earlier this month, a report by America's Voice, a group that backs new comprehensive immigration policies, said that immigration could be the deciding factor in as many as 40 congressional races in November.

Noting the electoral strength of Latinos, Cedillo said: "I would be concerned if I was the White House , if I was a member of Congress ."

Immigration has taken a back seat to a host of tough issues for Obama, including two wars, the struggling economy and a yearlong effort to get Congress to pass a health care overhaul. The president's defenders say that it would be politically impossible to add the volatile issue of immigration to the mix right now.

Cedillo doesn't buy that argument. He said the president knew that he'd be dealing with other big issues when he made the promises to the Latino community during the campaign.

"Those were the conditions that he was campaigning under," Cedillo said. "It's not like those were surprises. ... I was so proud of him, at how firm and clear he was in those presidential debates. He really provided leadership."

Barajas said Latinos recognized that it had been a tough year for Obama and an immigration plan might not be fully implemented immediately, but he said there wasn't even a plan for proceeding, let alone introducing legislation.

"I think the Democratic Party needs to wake up and realize that you can only fool the Latino community for so long," Barajas said. "There's a great sense of frustration, there's a great sense of anger and there's a big letdown" that will drive more Latinos to the Republican Party .

Regalado said he didn't believe that Democrats would switch to the Republican Party in big numbers. "What it does threaten is that Latinos stay home" on Election Day , he said.****

WASHINGTON -- A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil. It would bring the interpretation of the 14th Amendment into conformity with what the authors of its text intended, and with common sense, thereby removing an incentive for illegal immigration.

To end the practice of "birthright citizenship," all that is required is to correct the misinterpretation of that amendment's first sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." From these words has flowed the practice of conferring citizenship on children born here to illegal immigrants.

A parent from a poor country, writes professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school, "can hardly do more for a child than make him or her an American citizen, entitled to all the advantages of the American welfare state." Therefore, "It is difficult to imagine a more irrational and self-defeating legal system than one which makes unauthorized entry into this country a criminal offense and simultaneously provides perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry."

Writing in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, Graglia says this irrationality is rooted in a misunderstanding of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." What was this intended or understood to mean by those who wrote it in 1866 and ratified it in 1868? The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.

If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration -- and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration -- is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 begins with language from which the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause is derived: "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." (Emphasis added.) The explicit exclusion of Indians from birthright citizenship was not repeated in the 14th Amendment because it was considered unnecessary. Although Indians were at least partially subject to U.S. jurisdiction, they owed allegiance to their tribes, not the United States. This reasoning -- divided allegiance -- applies equally to exclude the children of resident aliens, legal as well as illegal, from birthright citizenship. Indeed, today's regulations issued by the departments of Homeland Security and Justice stipulate:

"A person born in the United States to a foreign diplomatic officer accredited to the United States, as a matter of international law, is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. That person is not a United States citizen under the 14th Amendment."

Sen. Lyman Trumbull of Illinois was, Graglia writes, one of two "principal authors of the citizenship clauses in 1866 act and the 14th Amendment." He said that "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" meant subject to its "complete" jurisdiction, meaning "not owing allegiance to anybody else." Hence children whose Indian parents had tribal allegiances were excluded from birthright citizenship.

Appropriately, in 1884 the Supreme Court held that children born to Indian parents were not born "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction because, among other reasons, the person so born could not change his status by his "own will without the action or assent of the United States." And "no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent." Graglia says this decision "seemed to establish" that U.S. citizenship is "a consensual relation, requiring the consent of the United States." So: "This would clearly settle the question of birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. There cannot be a more total or forceful denial of consent to a person's citizenship than to make the source of that person's presence in the nation illegal."

Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to illegal immigrant mothers. Graglia seems to establish that there is no constitutional impediment to Congress ending the granting of birthright citizenship to persons whose presence here is "not only without the government's consent but in violation of its law."

I have been ranting about this ad nauseum and not one peep from anyone whose voice is heard. GW is at least a start. I guess one could say Buchanan has been saying this stuff too.

We have to stop this abuse of all Americans by illegals who come here and abuse our system get free care at our hospitals to have babies who are thus automatic citizens and then do anchor illegals here. Try throwing out illegals whose children go to our public schools for free, apply and get medicaid, food stamps, and I don't know what else.

No politician has the guts to say or do anything about this.

"Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to illegal immigrant mothers."

Oh really. I didn't know this. And not ONE PEEP from Congress not one word from MSM.

This must not be turned into an Anglo Latino issue because it is not though obviously most illegals are Latino - not just Mexicans but millions from the Caribbean, Central and South America and I think less from Europe, and Asia.

This is about the rights of legal citizens are being usurped by foreigners who come here and make a mockery of our laws and our system and then have the damn nerve to stick back in our faces that we are abusing and discriminating against them.

I know most Americans agree with me.

The birthright thing and the allowing Americans to knowingly employ illegals are the two ways to put a stop to this.

Democrats will NOT do this. It is up to the Republicans to protect the rest of us from having our coutnry given away byt the radicals.

I will need to think more about Will's analysis here-- it is intriguing.

Even if it is correct, the political problem remains: demographics. Without Latino birthrates, US population would decline; Latinos are an ever increasing % of US citizenry. They tend to vote strongly Democrat. Groups that tend to vote Republican tend to be aging and in decline, both in absolute numbers and as a % of the population. The Republican party is already fairly irrelevant in the northeast of the US and with demographic trends in place will become a shrinking minority. THIS was Bush-Rove-McCain's impetus in supporting amnesty-- to remain competitive for the Latino vote.

I will need to think more about Will's analysis here-- it is intriguing.

Even if it is correct, the political problem remains: demographics. Without Latino birthrates, US population would decline; Latinos are an ever increasing % of US citizenry. They tend to vote strongly Democrat. Groups that tend to vote Republican tend to be aging and in decline, both in absolute numbers and as a % of the population. The Republican party is already fairly irrelevant in the northeast of the US and with demographic trends in place will become a shrinking minority. THIS was Bush-Rove-McCain's impetus in supporting amnesty-- to remain competitive for the Latino vote.

April 8, 2010 The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has affirmed what sheriffs, police chiefs, civil-rights lawyers and immigrant advocates have said for years: Outsourcing immigration enforcement to an ill-trained and poorly supervised assortment of state and local law enforcement agencies creates a lot of problems.

The program, commonly known as 287(g), deputizes local authorities as federal immigration agents so they can help Immigration and Customs Enforcement capture illegal immigrants who threaten the community or national security. A new report by the inspector general instead paints a portrait of 287(g) agencies as a motley posse of deputies who don’t know Spanish, who don’t know or care about the dangers of racial profiling and who operate well beyond the control of the federal agency that they are supposed to be working for.

It found the program lacks basic safeguards like data collection and reporting requirements to ensure that deputies don’t violate civil rights. The report also found that fewer than 10 percent of its sample of captured offenders had committed serious “Level 1” crimes, and almost half had no connection at all to violence, drugs or property crimes.

The report reinforces what a leading police association and police chiefs, including William Bratton of Los Angeles, have argued strenuously — that 287(g) undermines public safety. Police officers can’t fight crimes when communities they serve fear and avoid them.

The program was barely used until anti-immigrant fervor became white-hot over the last decade. And while many police departments shun 287(g) as bad news, other jurisdictions signed on to satisfy the urge to get tough on illegal immigration. The inspector general listed 33 ways to improve the program, mainly by patching up oversight deficiencies and bolstering training. Immigration and Customs Enforcement mostly concurred, but rejected one critical recommendation: It doesn’t want to collect data on encounters between 287(g) agencies and the public, to gauge the effect on civil liberties.

We are skeptical that the 287(g) program can ever be fixed. And we are sure that the returns are too low and the costs — in abuses and undermining law enforcement — are too high to make it worth trying. The Homeland Security Department should pull the plug on 287(g).

A little training should fix that, and an automatic check on anyone they arrest would do it too without any real change in policies, right? Just PC monkey screeching.

I love the term civil rights, if they are not part of this particular civilian society- how do they have any? Human rights, what rights does a human being have when he is invading another tribes territory? Aside from "3 steps toward the border".

I notice a lot of conservatives playing it safe and extolling how they are for raising the "legal" immigration levels as an excuse to say they are against illegal immigration. I don't know why. I am not for more legal or illegal immigration period. In any case my or the majority of most citizens wishes are going to be ignored as again those who pay taxes have less rights than everyone else.

Arizona Gov. Jan BrewerA new Rasmussen poll reveals that 70% of likely voters in Arizona support the new illegal immigration bill passed by the State Legislature. Only 23% oppose the bill. If signed into law, the bill would make it a crime to be in the state of Arizona illegally.

A majority of Arizona likely voters (53%), however, did express concern about if the bill will cause racial profiling. Forty-six percent expressed no concern.

The poll also asked likely voters how immigration will impact their decision at the polls, and 83% of Arizona residents said a candidate's position on immigration issues is important. Seventy-three percent of respondents also said that it's more important that Congress secure the border than offer an amnesty for the nation's 12 million illegal aliens.

The majority of Republicans, Independents and Democrats all support the bill. Although, Democrats were more concerned than the other two groups on potential civil rights violations the bill may have.

The bill awaits signature by Gov. Jan Brewer, but reports show signs that the Governor will sign the bill into law.****

"I notice a lot of conservatives...extolling how they are for raising the "legal" immigration levels as an excuse to say they are against illegal immigration."

CCP, Must admit I am for legal immigration and I don't think it is an excuse. I find the questions of legal immigration, guest workers and legal visitors a completely different issue from dealing with illegals.

We should be able to allow or debate the merits of allowing people to come for good reasons as in the past, to fill needs, to assimilate, to enjoy opportunities and liberties not available elsewhere and we should be VERY selective about who we take now and call Americans.

A timeout on new immigration from time to time might make sense while we catch our breath and find out who is here now, where and why. But then I would like to see limited legal immigration continue. Demographically I think we will be a dying society without some sources of newcomers.

In order to assimilate, new citizens should not all be from the same region or ethnicity to avoid getting permanent, non-assimilating enclaves like the Muslims are doing in Europe. In order to fill a need, we must look at education, skills, age, work ethic and reason for coming. Dealing with the illegals already here is quite a dilemma. a) Amnesty is a mockery of our laws and unfair to people who immigrated legally with great patience and expense. b) Roundup and deportation of all illegals is not going to happen. c) Round up of cross sections is not exactly equal protection or equal treatment.

I would like to see a comprehensive program starting with securing our borders first. Then offer some equivalent to a negotiated plea agreement to all illegals who choose to come forward within a reasonable time that would involve going home within some notice period to reapply, or to negotiate work papers to stay but preclude citizenship.

Our cowardice really showed itself during the census. Here we have federal workers constitutionally checking each residence to see who lives there for representation purposes. Especially after 9/11 where we had the hijackers living illegally among us and federal departments not communicating, why not have the census workers ask who is a citizen and discover at least partly who else is here. No illegal searches but certainly an obligation to report what is in plain view and suspicions of the undocumented that they encounter.

Do we really need to raise the limits on how many immigrants are legal?

Don't we have enough now?

I think everyone is qualifying or tempering their being against illegals by saying "I think we should raise the number of legal immigrants allowed on a yearly basis as though they have to protect against being called a bigot or biased in some way.

Or like saying I am not bigoted and love to have more people from everywhere around the globe move here just do it "legally'.

Well I am not bigoted so now that I did my duty saying that I still think we have enough people coming here legally without having to raise any limits.

We didn't have doles a hundred years ago. People came here and only got what they worked for not also what they qualify for.

"I think everyone is qualifying or tempering their being against illegals by"

I didn't literally mean everyone such as Doug or Crafty. I typed this on the fly this AM but I meant many of the talking pundits on cable.

"Bright, hard working, educated people who want to become Americans are a big net plus for America."

In Liberty and Tyranny I believe by Levin's research illegals use 30% more in services than they provide.I would be the first to admit it must be difficult to measure this. I am not sure if this applies to legals.

As for the educated immigrants they may be a net plus. But how many is a good thing? I guess the answer is the market could decide. Health care is a special case in point.

I mentioned before how some Indians are saying life is better for doctors in India now than here. One Indian told me "they keep coming here" but more recently updated it with two that he knows who came here to learn medicine and did not like practice here and then went back to India.

I guess one could argue that it is good for say Indians to come and open or maintain old motels (I've heard one third of all motels in the South are Indian operated.)

When the market no longer can sustain more motels I guess they will stop coming. Is that good for America? Maybe. No one is stopping those born here from getting into the motel business.

I don't think most Mexicans who come here are very educated. Yet some work hard. Does that qualify? Just wondering out loud.

Do we require one has an advanced degree? How about High school? How about they are coming here to get an advanced degree?

A carefully crafted immigration law in ArizonaBy: BYRON YORK April 26, 2010

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signs the illegal-immigration bill — which will go into effect this summer — at the Arizona Department of Transportation in Phoenix on Friday. (David Wallace, The Arizona Republic/AP)

The chattering class is aghast at Arizona's new immigration law. "Harkens back to apartheid," says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker. "Shameful," says the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne. "Terrible…an invitation to abuse," says the New York Times' David Brooks.

For his part, President Obama calls the law "misguided" and says it "threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans." Obama has ordered the Justice Department to "closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation."

Has anyone actually read the law? Contrary to the talk, it is a reasonable, limited, carefully-crafted measure designed to help law enforcement deal with a serious problem in Arizona. Its authors anticipated criticism and went to great lengths to make sure it is constitutional and will hold up in court. It is the criticism of the law that is over the top, not the law itself.

The law requires police to check with federal authorities on a person's immigration status, if officers have stopped that person for some legitimate reason and come to suspect that he or she might be in the U.S. illegally. The heart of the law is this provision: "For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency…where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person…"

Critics have focused on the term "reasonable suspicion" to suggest that the law would give police the power to pick anyone out of a crowd for any reason and force them to prove they are in the U.S. legally. Some foresee mass civil rights violations targeting Hispanics.

What fewer people have noticed is the phrase "lawful contact," which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. "That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he's violated some other law," says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure. "The most likely context where this law would come into play is a traffic stop."

As far as "reasonable suspicion" is concerned, there is a great deal of case law dealing with the idea, but in immigration matters, it means a combination of circumstances that, taken together, cause the officer to suspect lawbreaking. It's not race -- Arizona's new law specifically says race and ethnicity cannot be the sole factors in determining a reasonable suspicion.

For example: "Arizona already has a state law on human smuggling," says Kobach. "An officer stops a group of people in a car that is speeding. The car is overloaded. Nobody had identification. The driver acts evasively. They are on a known smuggling corridor." That is a not uncommon occurrence in Arizona, and any officer would reasonably suspect that the people in the car were illegal. Under the new law, the officer would get in touch with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check on their status.

But what if the driver of the car had shown the officer his driver's license? The law clearly says that if someone produces a valid Arizona driver's license, or other state-issued identification, they are presumed to be here legally. There's no reasonable suspicion.

Is having to produce a driver's license too burdensome? These days, natural-born U.S. citizens, and everybody else, too, are required to show a driver's license to get on an airplane, to check into a hotel, even to purchase some over-the-counter allergy medicines. If it's a burden, it's a burden on everyone.

Still, critics worry the law would force some people to carry their papers, just like in an old movie. The fact is, since the 1940s, federal law has required non-citizens in this country to carry, on their person, the documentation proving they are here legally -- green card, work visa, etc. That hasn't changed.

Kobach, a Republican who is now running for Kansas Secretary of State, was the chief adviser to Attorney General John Ashcroft on immigration issues from 2001 to 2003. He has successfully defended Arizona immigration laws in the past. "The bill was drafted in expectation that the open-borders crowd would almost certainly bring a lawsuit," he says. "It's drafted to withstand judicial scrutiny."

The bottom line is, it's a good law, sensibly written and rigorously focused -- no matter what the critics say.

I understood and didn't take anything personal from that. The issue of legal immigration levels is important and we differ on it which is fine, but the issue of urgency is about the illegals and I would rather keep the focus there.

The doctor example is tricky because the shortage I think is artificial; we keep plenty of good and smart Americans out of the profession with the artificially low number of people we admit to our medical schools (IMO). Our local University with an overall enrollment of over 50,000 takes an incoming class to the Med. School of about 200 students. If that is all the young people that can grasp the subject material then so be it, but then we end up being seen by less trained people like physician assistants and nurse practitioners. Barriers to entry in medicine were designed to maintain the highest quality but also drive up costs based on artificial scarcity. Medical schools have no market incentive or oversight that I know of to catch up to the reality that we have 300 million patients needing attention. That should be fixed here primarily, not just fill the need from elsewhere.

In other areas such as software engineering, wireless, optical communications, energy innovation etc. I think all the talented people of the world have the opportunity to be employed or else go the entrepreneurial route that is virtually unlimited.

"Do we require one has an advanced degree?" - No, but that would be one indicator of not coming for the free perks. Bringing intellectual properties into the country is a good thing for us and bringing people likely to ride on our overloaded system is a bad thing. "How about they are coming here to get an advanced degree? - I think we allow that very openly if it is legit, but that alone does not bring citizenship. "How do we define the criteria besides just saying not criminals?" - I guess I would require each application to be looked at individually and closely. Key is that WE get to decide who comes in and it should be from a wider cross section of the globe if we want or expect assimilation.

Doug and Crafty,I hear your points of view and from what I read many do feel the same way. It is one thing if we bring in Werner Von Braun or someone like the ex CEO of Avanex (I can't recall his name). It is another if they are doctors, IT professionals (thousands in NJ), and quite another still if they are uneducated low wage.

Yes, I don't mind bringing geniuses into the US. Otherwise I don't think more is helpful.

In general, I am not for increasing legal immigration numbers. I think it is crazy. Suppose we double the numbers to 2 million. In ten years another 20 million people? We already have over 300 million. Why is expanding out population without endless resources, space, but endless entitlements good. To continue a ponzi scheme wherein we bring in more people to work and pay for those on the dole?

*****APThe Department of Homeland Security has just reported that during 2009, they issued 1,130,818 new Green Cards to foreign nationals, allowing them to work legally in this country. That number represents the fourth highest number of cards issued in one year.

750,000 of the new Green Cards were given to the families of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

When push comes to shove, a fundamental question is whether one believes on the whole that people are assets or liabilities. Certainly some people are clearly one or the other, but on the whole, are people assets or liabilities?

America has taken the tired, the huddled poor masses (messing up my quote here, sorry! ) and done wondrous things by applying the inspired principles of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Now that we veer off course into Liberal and Corporate Fascism, well things aren't working out so well.

Much of Europe's problems originate in its declining population, so too Russia, and a surprising list of many other countries too. Without Latino birth rates, the US would be declining too. Over loaded with entitlements and a shrinking (i.e. aging) population is a losing strategy for sure. LETS PLEASE THINK ABOUT THIS AND OFFER OUR THOUGHTS.

Europe may have a declining population but I don't think this is true about immigration to Europe.All we hear is that we are turning into Europe with staggering entitlements and debt.Our Western culture appears to have been turned into a giant Ponzi scheme which will at some point collapse like all Ponzi schemes do.I just came out of Dunkin Donuts. Every empolyee in there appears to be Mexican, Guatamalen, Honduran or from somewhere south of our border. Of course I don't know if they are legal or not. Dunkin Donuts for sure doesn't know, does not ask, maybe by law can't even ask. The only ones benefiting from this is Dunkin Donuts. How does this help the average citizen? Because I have a person who can hand me a cup of coffee and bagel? Because Americans youth or seniors are too lazy or expect their entitlements they refuse to work in a Dunkin Donuts?

We can't keep having people coming here in droves in numbers akin to the population of New York State every ten years. For goodness sakes there are what 40 million people in California. And look at the state.

I say we stop this mess and leave the levels of legal immigration where they are and stop allowing employers to look the other way, stop the old thing where if you are born here you are automatically a citizen even if both parents are illegal (for Godsake this is crazy),and start making sure everyone has some form of ID verifying they are here legally. Yes these IDs can be forged and there will be fraudulant obtaining of them but this is a start.

The country is bankrupt and getting worse. Even the phoney one admits it now with his debt commision. "We need to get the debt down now. It can't wait". Well no kidding! And coming from the guy who by himself quadrupled it. The gaul, the nerve the chuztpah of this guy!! And the mainstream media doesn't even call him on it.

The laugh is on the legal hardworking tax paying citizens of this country.

CCP, I respect your opinion on legal immigration and we all come at this from different parts of the country with different problems. For us it is those pesky Canadians infiltrating our hockey leagues.

I just don't like to see legitimate issues of legal immigration co-mingled with the problem of illegals coming in, like comparing the merits for or against throwing a party at your house versus having a break-in.

There is no good reason to keep turning a blind eye to illegal entry.-------------------VDH wrote about the issue yesterday. One point he make is that there is not going to be a mass deportation. So pretty much everyone in will be staying whether they get some kind of deal or stay under the law. That reality increases the urgency of border security and enforcement. http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/how-could-they-do-that-in-arizona/?singlepage=true

Doug,legal and illegal issue are IMHO co-mingled all the time. This isn't just me doing it.

How many times have you heard this or its equivalent, "I am not against immigration, and indeed support higher levels of 'legal' immigration. I am simply not for illegal immigration". Every time a talking head starts to open his mouth about the illegal problem he/she feels they are oblgated to play the political correct card so as to not offend anyone and point this or its equivalent out. We are all so trained to be terrifed of the "bigot label" we can't even discuss the reality of the scope of the problem at hand. (Ironically we have our President saying he wants all the Black, Latino, and women votes and yet no one calls him on this racist comment. I don't know why? Does this not say it all? But that is another story.)

If these are inseparable issues as you and Crafty point out then why everytime the TV personalities discuss the illegal situation they have to bring up the legal immigration issues.

We're protecting our country from an invasion. I think increasing levels of legal immigration is NOT part of the answer. And yes just my opinion. Unless of course there are millions of world class geniuses who want to emigrate here. Or, if we have determined our present legal residents/citizens are so hopeless that we need the help of those from other countries who appear ready and willing to work far harder in order to keep this country afloat.

Write or say anything about illegal immigration, and one should expect to be called all of that and more—even if a strong supporter of legal immigration. Illegal alien becomes undocumented worker. Anti-immigrant replaces anti-illegal-immigration. “Comprehensive” is a euphemism for amnesty. Triangulation abounds. A fiery op-ed grandstands and deplores the Arizona law, but offers no guidance about illegal immigration — and blames the employer for doing something that the ethnic lobby in fact welcomes.

Nevertheless, here it goes from a supporter of legal immigration: how are we to make sense of the current Arizona debate? One should show concern about some elements of the law, but only in the context of the desperation of the citizens of Arizona. And one should show some skepticism concerning mounting liberal anguish, so often expressed by those whose daily lives are completely unaffected by the revolutionary demographic, cultural, and legal transformations occurring in the American Southwest.

As I understand the opposition to the recent Arizona law, it boils down to something like the following: the federal government’s past decision not to enforce its own law should always trump the state’s right to honor it. That raises interesting questions: Does the state contravene federal authority by exercising it? If the federal government does not protect the borders of a state, does the state have a right to do it itself? The federal government has seemed in the past to be saying that if one circumvented a federal law, and was known to have circumvented federal law with recognized impunity, then there was no longer a law to be enforced.

A Losing Political Issue

The politics of illegal immigration are a losing proposition for liberals (one can see that in the resort to euphemism), even if they don’t quite see it that way. Here are ten considerations why.

Law?—What Law?

First, there is the simplicity of the argument. One either wishes or does not wish existing law to be enforced. If the answer is no, and citizens can pick and chose which laws they would like to obey, in theory why should we have to pay taxes or respect the speed limit? Note that liberal Democrats do not suggest that we overturn immigration law and de jure open the border — only that we continue to do that de facto. Confusion between legal and illegal immigration is essential for the open borders argument, since a proper distinction between the two makes the present policy indefensible—especially since it discriminates against those waiting in line to come to America legally (e.g., somehow our attention is turned to the illegal alien’s plight and not the burdensome paperwork and government obstacles that the dutiful legal immigrant must face).

Why Wave the Flag of the Country I Don’t Wish to Return To?

Second, often the protests against enforcement of immigration law are strangely couched within a general climate of anger at the U.S. government (and/or the American people) for some such illiberal transgression (review the placards, flags, etc. at May Day immigration rallies). Fairly or not, the anger at the U.S. and the nostalgia for Mexico distill into the absurd, something like either “I am furious at the country I insist on staying in, and fond of the country I most certainly do not wish to return to” or “I am angry at you so you better let angry me stay with you!” Such mixed messages confuse the electorate. As in the case with the Palestinians, there is an effort to graft a foreign policy issue (protecting an international border) onto domestic identity politics, to inject an inflammatory race/class element into the debate by creating oppressors, victims, and grievances along racial divides.

Big Brother Mexico?

Third, Mexico is no help. Now it weighs in with all sorts of moral censure for Arizonians — this from a corrupt government whose very policies are predicated on exporting a million indigenous people a year, while it seeks to lure wealthy “gringos” to invest in second-homes in Baja. The absence of millions from Oaxaca or Chiapas ensures billions in remittances, less expenditures for social services, and fewer dissident citizens. But the construct of Mexico as the concerned parent of its own lost children is by now so implausible that even its sympathizers do not take it seriously. Mexico has lost all credibility on these issues, expressing concern for its own citizens only when they seem to have crossed the border — and left Mexico.

It’s Not a Race Issue

Fourth, there really is a new popular groundswell to close the borders. Most against illegal immigration, especially in the case of minorities and Mexican-American citizens, keep rather mum about their feelings. But that silence should not be interpreted as antagonism to enforcing the law. Many minorities realize that the greatest hindrance to a natural rise in wages for entry level jobs has been the option for an employer to hire illegal aliens, who, at least in their 20s and 30s, will work harder for less pay with fewer complaints (when sick, or disabled, or elderly, the worker is directed by the employer to the social services agencies and replaced by someone younger as a new cycle of exploitation begins). In this context, the old race card is less effective. The general population is beginning to see not that Americans (of all races who oppose illegal immigration) are racist, but that the open borders movement has itself a racially chauvinistic theme to it, albeit articulated honestly only on university campuses and in Chicano-Latino departments, as a sort of “payback” for the Mexican War, where redress for “lost” land is finally to be had through demography.

Bad Times

Fifth, we are in a deep recession, in which the jobs that for so long seemed unappealing to American citizens are now not all that unappealing. The interior of California suffers from 20% Depression-style unemployment; many of the jobless are first and second-generation Mexican-Americans, who would have some leverage with employers if there were not an alternative illegal labor poll.

A Fence—How Quaint!

Sixth, the so-called unworkable fence mostly works; it either keeps border crossers out or diverts them to unfenced areas. (There is a reason why Obama has ordered its completion tabled). It used to be sophisticated wisdom to tsk-tsk something as reductive as walls, usually by adducing the theory that if an occasional alien made it over or under a wall, then it was of no utility, without acknowledging the fence’s effectiveness in deterring most would-be crossers. But where the fence has gone up, crossings have gone down; and where it is not yet completed crossings have increased.

One Big Travel Advisory?

Seventh, Mexico is now more violent than Iraq. The unrest is spilling across the borders. The old shrill argument that criminals, drug smugglers, and violence in general are spreading into the American southwest from Mexico is not longer quite so shrill.

11 Million—Then, Now, Forever?

Eighth, the numbers are cumulative. We talked of “eleven million illegal aliens” in 2001, and still talk of “eleven million illegal aliens” in 2010. In fact, most suspect that there is more likely somewhere between 12 and 20 million. (Do the math of annual arrivals and add them to the existing pool, factoring in voluntary and coerced deportations).

Money for Mexico?

Ninth, we are at last turning to the issue of remittances: How can expatriates send back some $20-30 billion in remittances, if they are impoverished and in need of extensive entitlements and subsidies to cushion the harshness of life in America? Do those lost billions hurt the U.S. economy? Are they a indirect subsidy for Mexico City? Were such funds ever taxed completely or off-the-books cash income? Remittances are Mexico’s second largest source of foreign exchange; that it comes so often off the sweat of minimum-wage workers seems especially ironic, given Mexico’s protestations about human rights.

The California Canary

Tenth, California’s meltdown is instructive. If about half the nation’s illegal aliens reside in the state, and its problems are in at least in some part attributable to soaring costs in educating hundreds of thousands of non-English-speaking students, a growing number of aliens in prison and the criminal justice system, real problems of collecting off-the-books income and payroll taxes, expanding entitlements, and unsustainable social services, do we wish to avoid its model?

The Law’s a Mess?

The enforcement of the law, such as it is, has become Byzantine: illegal aliens in California pay a third of the college tuition as non-resident citizens; police routinely inquire about all sorts of possible criminal behavior — except the violation of federal immigration statutes. Past, once-and-for-all, final, absolutely-no-more amnesties encourage more illegal entries on the expectation of more such no-more amnesties.

Bottom line. I can understand the liberal desire for open borders. For some, it is genuine humanitarianism — that the U.S. is wealthy enough to absorb a quarter of the impoverished population of Mexico. For others, it is policy by anecdote: helping a long-employed nanny with a car payment or a loyal gardener with a legal matter by extension translates into support for de facto open borders. I have met over the years literally hundreds of Bay Area residents who have assured me that because they have developed a close relationship with Juan, their lawn mower, by extension everyone in nearby Redwood City — which they do not frequent and keep their children away from — ipso facto is like Juan and thus should be given amnesty.

On the political side, Democrats clearly welcome new voting constituents. Illegal aliens becoming citizens, at least for a generation or so, translates into more entitlements and a larger government to administer. (Note how there is not a liberal outcry that we do not let in enough computer programers from India, small businessmen from France and Germany, or doctors from Korea). Then there is the gerrymandering of the American Southwest to reflect new demographic realities, and the pipe-dream of a salad bowl of unassimilated peoples in need of a paternalistic liberal technocratic governing class — all that apparently is worth the firestorm of trying to ram through something so unpopular as “comprehensive” reform.

Not Quite So Easy

Do conservatives have the winning argument? For now yes — simply close the border , fine employers of illegal aliens, and allow the pool of aliens to become static. Fining employers both stops illegal immigration and is sometimes cheered on by the Left, as if the worker has no culpability for breaking the law (e.g., a liberal can damn unscrupulous employers and thereby oppose illegal immigration without confronting the La Raza bloc). Some will marry citizens. Some will voluntarily return to Mexico. Some will be picked up through the normal government vigilance we all face — traffic infractions, necessary court appearances, interaction with state agencies. And while we argue over the policy concerning the remaining majority of illegal aliens and such contentious issues as green-cards, guest workers, and so-called earned citizenship, the pool at least in theory shrinks.

Yet if I were a Republican policy-maker I would be very wary of mass deportations. A gradualist approach, clearly delineated, is preferable, in which those who have been here five years (to pick an arbitrary number), are gainfully employed, and are free of a criminal record should have some avenue for applying for citizenship (one can fight it out whether they should pay a fine, stay or return to Mexico in the process, and get/not get preference over new applicants.)

Again, one should avoid immediate, mass deportations (it would resemble something catastrophic like the Pakistani-Indian exchanges of the late 1940s), and yet not reward the breaking of federal law. Good luck with that.

Finally, legal immigration should be reformed and reflect new realities. Millions of highly educated and skilled foreigners from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe are dying to enter the U.S. Rather than base immigration criteria on anchor children, accidental birth in the U.S. without concern for legality, and family ties, we need at least in part to start giving preference to those of all races and nationalities who will come with critical skills, and in turn rely less on the social service entitlement industry. They should come from as many diverse places as possible to prevent the sort of focused ethnic tribalism and chauvinism we have seen in the case of Mexico’s cynicism.

"legal and illegal issue are IMHO co-mingled all the time. This isn't just me doing it."

- Agreed. Prof. Hanson co-mingled those issues in the link I offered and that GM posted. It is true that it offers some cover for those of us who are relatively pro-immigration. It allows you to tell these people there is a process they need to follow.

"We are all so trained to be terrified of the "bigot label" we can't even discuss the reality of the scope of the problem at hand."

- We get to discuss it honestly here, but politicians are terrified of having a label like that stick. I just can't think of other areas of law where we don't enforce a crucial law for fear of offending a major constituency. For example, IRS enforcement is unpopular and unfair to the group of Americans who actually pay in, yet we do it. We authorize, staff and fund the IRS to go after this group every year - with brutal techniques for enforcement. And you don't have to be suspected of a different crime to get questioned or accused. If you are alive and productive, you are a suspect and required to present paperwork.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has accused Arizona of opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement." But Arizona has nothing on Mexico when it comes to cracking down on illegal aliens. While open-borders activists decry new enforcement easures signed into law in "Nazi-zona" last week, they remain deaf, dumb or willfully blind to the unapologetically restrictionist policies of our neighbors to the south.

The Arizona law bans sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws, stiffens penalties against illegal alien day laborers and their employers, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to complete and carry an alien registration document, and allows the police to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they are in the U.S. legally. If those rules constitute the racist, fascist, xenophobic, inhumane regime that the National Council of La Raza, Al Sharpton, Catholic bishops and their grievance-mongering followers claim, then what about these regulations and restrictions imposed on foreigners?

-- The Mexican government will bar foreigners if they upset "the equilibrium of the national demographics." How's that for racial and ethnic profiling?

-- If outsiders do not enhance the country's "economic or national interests" or are "not found to be physically or mentally healthy," they are not welcome. Neither are those who show "contempt against national sovereignty or security." They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care.

-- Illegal entry into the country is equivalent to a felony punishable by two years' imprisonment. Document fraud is subject to fine and imprisonment; so is alien marriage fraud. Evading deportation is a serious crime; illegal re-entry after deportation is punishable by ten years' imprisonment.

Foreigners may be kicked out of the country without due process and the endless bites at the litigation apple that illegal aliens are afforded in our country (see, for example, President Obama's illegal alien aunt -- a fugitive from deportation for eight years who is awaiting a second decision on her previously rejected asylum claim).

-- Law enforcement officials at all levels -- by national mandate -- must cooperate to enforce immigration laws, including illegal alien arrests and deportations. The Mexican military is also required to assist in immigration enforcement operations. Native-born Mexicans are empowered to make citizens' arrests of illegal aliens and turn them in to authorities.

-- Ready to show your papers? Mexico's National Catalog of Foreigners tracks all outside tourists and foreign nationals. A National Population Registry tracks and verifies the identity of every member of the population, who must carry a citizens' identity card. Visitors who do not possess proper documents and identification are subject to arrest as illegal aliens.

All of these provisions are enshrined in Mexico's Ley General de Población (General Law of the Population) and were spotlighted in a 2006 research paper published by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy. There's been no public clamor for "comprehensive immigration reform" in Mexico, however, because pro-illegal alien speech by outsiders is prohibited.

Consider: Open-borders protesters marched freely at the Capitol building in Arizona, comparing GOP Gov. Jan Brewer to Hitler, waving Mexican flags, advocating that demonstrators "Smash the State," and holding signs that proclaimed "No human is illegal" and "We have rights."

But under the Mexican constitution, such political speech by foreigners is banned. Noncitizens cannot "in any way participate in the political affairs of the country." In fact, a plethora of Mexican statutes enacted by its congress limit the participation of foreign nationals and companies in everything from investment, education, mining and civil aviation to electric energy and firearms. Foreigners have severely limited private property and employment rights (if any).

As for abuse, the Mexican government is notorious for its abuse of Central American illegal aliens who attempt to violate Mexico's southern border. The Red Cross has protested rampant Mexican police corruption, intimidation and bribery schemes targeting illegal aliens there for years. Mexico didn't respond by granting mass amnesty to illegal aliens, as it is demanding that we do. It clamped down on its borders even further. In late 2008, the Mexican government launched an aggressive deportation plan to curtain illegal Cuban immigration and human trafficking through Cancun.

Meanwhile, Mexican consular offices in the United States have coordinated with left-wing social justice groups and the Catholic Church leadership to demand a moratorium on all deportations and a freeze on all employment raids across America.

Mexico is doing the job Arizona is now doing -- a job the U.S. government has failed miserably to do: putting its people first. Here's the proper rejoinder to all the hysterical demagogues in Mexico (and their sympathizers here on American soil) now calling for boycotts and invoking Jim Crow laws, apartheid and the Holocaust because Arizona has taken its sovereignty into its own hands:

My column this morning is about the Arizona immigration law and attempts to make the point (among other points) that the state law is a measured response to a serious economic, social, and law enforcement problem. As I detail, the powers invoked by the statute are tiny compared to the federal government's border enforcement powers, which are not subject to any of the usual protections of the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause.

Contrary to the hysterical charges of racism being leveled at the statute, it does not permit a no-holds-barred inquisition of Hispanic people. Indeed, the state law demands more of police than federal law. To begin with, there is to be no inquiry about a person's immigration status unless the "contact" between the police officer and the person is "lawful" in the first instance.

There are three relevant gradations of contact between a police officer and a person: non-custodial, brief detention, and arrest. The non-custodial context refers generally to any incidental interaction between a police officer and an individual — including those initiated by the individual. A police officer does not need suspicion in order to ask a person a question, but the person is not required to answer and the officer has no lawful authority to detain a person, even fleetingly, absent "reasonable suspicion."

Brief detentions are known in the law as "Terry stops" — thanks to the famous Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Under Terry, a police officer may only detain a person if the officer has reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity. This standard is not met by a hunch or a generalized suspicion — a cop who says to himself, "Those look like Mexicans, they must be up to no good," does not make the grade. Instead, the officer must be able to articulate specific facts which, together with the logical inference to be drawn from those facts, reasonably suggest that criminal activity has occurred or is imminent. Courts are deferential to the judgment of police officers — the standard is not what any person would think of the facts observed but what an experienced cop acting reasonably and responsibly would think. But there must be specific, describable indicia of criminal activity.

The permissible duration of a Terry stop depends on the circumstances. The Supreme Court has not set in stone some magic moment where a brief detention evolves into an arrest. But arrest happens when the detention has become police custody. At that point, the officer must have probable cause that a crime has been or is being committed.

So the Arizona immigration law does not allow the police officer to have contact with the person unless the contact is lawful. This means if even the briefest detention is involved, the police officer must have reasonable suspicion that some crime has been or is being committed. Absent that, the officer is not permitted to stop the person.

Now, why do I say the Arizona law is more restrictive of police than is federal law? Well, the Supreme Court has held that one common rationale for a permissible Terry stop is to ascertain the identity of the person who is detained. That is, federal law would probably permit an inquiry into citizenship as a part of establishing who the detainee is — again, as long as the officer had a good reason for detaining the person in the first place.

The Arizona law, by contrast, does not give a cop this latitude. Instead, the officer is permitted to attempt to determine the person's immigration status only if, in addition to the initial contact being lawful, there also exists specific "reasonable suspicion that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States." As I noted above, our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence teaches that reasonable suspicion requires specific, articulable facts — not a hunch or generalized suspicion. Thus, the Arizona law requires that there be reasonable suspicion for both the initial stop (e.g., the police officer observed erratic driving and concluded the person might be intoxicated) and for pursuing a line of inquiry about whether the person is an illegal alien.

Two more principles are instructive here. The first involves the complaint that this law may result in a person's being found to be an illegal alien even if the reason the police officer stops him has nothing to do with his immigration status. So what? If the police stop you because you are driving erratically and they find an illegal gun in your car, you may be prosecuted for possession of the gun — the fact that the cops weren't looking for a gun is irrelevant. Ditto if police get a warrant to search your home for stolen appliances and, while lawfully searching, find a bag of cocaine — you can be charged for violating the drug laws even though that is not what the warrant allowed the police to look for. The question is not what the police were expecting to find; it is whether they were lawfully conducting a search in the first place.

Second, all of the above takes place within the context of the the civil rights laws. Under Section 1983 of Title 42, United States Code, state law enforcement officers may be sued if they deprive a person of any rights, privileges or immunities to which the Constitution entitles him. Police officers who enforce the law in bad faith, who harrass people without a reasonable basis to believe a crime has been or is about to be committed, are liable to civil suit. The legal, financial, and professional consequences of violating the civil rights laws can be very damaging.

As I indicated in my column, I agree with Byron: The people who are complaining about this law almost certainly either have not read it or are demagogues who would make the same absurd claims no matter what they law said.

The Foundation"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular." --Thomas Jefferson

Government & PoliticsArizona Immigration Brouhaha

Did these guys just come to work?Last week, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed a tough new law designed to crack down on the flood of illegal immigration in the state and the violence and mayhem that has accompanied it. Political mayhem is the price of the law's enactment.

Stepped-up enforcement of the border in California and Texas has funneled much of the illegal alien traffic and cross-border smuggling through Arizona. A sharp increase in crime has resulted, with Phoenix now being the kidnap capital of the United States. Ranchers near the border live under a state of siege, but demands that the federal government take aggressive remedial action have been unavailing. The recent murder of Rob Krentz, a kind-hearted rancher who often assisted desperate immigrants abused and abandoned by their "coyote" guides, prompted widespread outrage at the federal government's fundamental failure to protect its citizens against a dangerous foreign invasion.

The race-baiting grievance mongers wasted no time in denouncing the law. Vandals smeared refried beans in the shape of a swastika on the Arizona Capitol building (which we find to be an incredibly strange mixed message). Some leftist church leaders denounced the law as "hateful." Race hustler Jesse Jackson called it "terrorism." Calling it "stupid," "an embarrassment" and "racist," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik (Tucson) said he would refuse to enforce it.

Latino activist and far-left Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) called for a boycott of his own state, saying, "I support some very targeted economic sanctions on the state of Arizona. We will be asking national organizations -- civil, religious, political -- not to have conferences and conventions in the state of Arizona. There has to be an economic consequence to this action and to this legislation." We're sure Arizona's 2.3 million unemployed will thank Grijalva for his principled stand.

Meanwhile, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, the government of Mexico issued a travel advisory and expressed concern about the rights of its citizens in the United States. Of course, Mexico plays by much more stringent rules when dealing with its own immigration issues.

These critics either haven't read the law or, more likely, don't want to be bothered with reality. Among other things, Arizona's new law makes it a state crime for people to be in Arizona if they are in the United States illegally. If the police have an otherwise lawful encounter with someone, and if they have "reasonable suspicion" that the person is in the United States illegally, the police are required to ask for documentation of immigration status. An Arizona driver's license is presumptive proof of lawful status.

The law specifically forbids police from basing their actions solely on someone's race or ethnicity. It also compels the police to base their "reasonable suspicion" on criteria that are permissible under the U.S. and Arizona constitutions. Moreover, when she signed the bill, Gov. Brewer issued an executive order directing additional training specifically to avoid racial profiling when the law is enforced.

The new law, which in many places quotes federal law verbatim, was enacted because of the failure at the federal level to enforce those same laws. None of this matters to the Left. With tactics straight out of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," they have demonized everyone who dares stand up for responsible enforcement of our laws and for the protection of our citizens.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama declared that the nation may not have the "appetite" for an immigration fight this year, so he removed the issue from his agenda. That's a relief.

When Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economist Milton Friedman was asked about unlimited immigration in 1999, he stated that "it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both."

Seeing Shakira giving advise to America about Arizona's immigration law is a double insult to me. First she is another one singing and claiming lyrics on a couple of songs that were in my veiw stolen from Katherine. I guess one could say she didn't know they were stolen but she surely knows she didn't write them. Yea right. She comes off the boat, can barely speak English when she gets here and suddenly she wirtes hit lyrics IN ENGLISH!

That said I don't know why they put her on all the talk shows telling us about humanitarism and all. "I don't know anything about the Constitution" she says with the accent but goes on to tell us about how the law hurts children and all the rest. I don't know why the Latin community would necessarily want her as a spokesperson. It would like me wanting Madanno or Streisand going over to other counties telling them what to do on my behalf.

As alluded to in David Hansons piece, one could ask why she doesn't go back to Columbia and give them all the advice they can handle.

A falsehood in the first sentence - people will be detained just for the color of their skin when in fact they won't. Then she goes on to defend illegals to get full citizenship and zero enforcement because people are people. Then equates it to the holocaust, "it started just like this". Very articulate and well-spoken except all of it is BS. Trespassers don't have a right to full ownership. Maybe they do under the Obama doctrine where what is yours is mine.